Available for $50, a brick can be customized with any name and will be placed on the grounds of the new Belding Veterans Memorial, which will be built along the east and west sides of the Pere Marquette Depot on Gibson Street in Belding. The bricks will be available for purchase throughout the week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. inside of Leppinks Food Center in Belding. — Daily News/Cory Smith

BELDING — With a goal to construct the Belding Freedom Wall sometime in May, Belding resident and veteran Denny Craycraft will be fundraising throughout the week at Leppink’s Food Center in Belding, offering residents the chance to embed themselves in the grounds of the monument by purchasing a brick which will be placed just outside the monument.

Bricks are available for a total of $50 and can be customized to your liking. They will be placed in front of the Freedom Wall monument, as well as other monuments constructed over time. For a donation of $35 you can receive a booklet instead of the brick, featuring the history of the original freedom wall that was decommissioned in 1948.

Craycraft will fundraise inside Leppink’s Food Center through Friday of this week. He will be there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

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Denny Craycraft showed Belding City Council members a simple blue star, its color dulled over time. He explained that the star belongs to Paul Braman and is inscribed with Braman’s name. The star once was displayed on Belding’s Freedom Wall. “This is what it is all about,” said Craycraft, an active member of the Belding Veterans of Foreign Wars Post.

What originally began as an effort to resurrect a freedom wall to honor area veterans in Belding has grown into much more in just four short months. By Memorial Day 2012, Denny Craycraft, the Belding veteran spearheading the freedom wall project, is hoping to officially break ground on the first phase of constructing a veterans park in Belding.

World War II veteran John Geisen has one wish: To see a new Freedom Wall erected in Belding displaying the names of all Belding residents who fought in the war while they are still alive to see it. Members of a subcommittee working to construct the wall discussed basic logistics of the project, along with possible locations for the wall and a new Veterans Park. Halfway through the nearly two-hour meeting, Geisen had heard enough.

After months of comparing sites, viewing designs, creating a sub-committee and receiving much input from members of the community in Belding, the new Veterans Memorial finally has a home. Members of the Belding City Council voted 4-0 during Tuesday night’s meeting to approve the area to the west of the Pere Marquette Depot building on Gibson Street as the future home of a Veterans Memorial in Belding.